ys unconsciously
exaggerate what they have to say for the sake of the importance it
gives them." It might be possible that a jury would look at Lord
Fawn's evidence in this light; otherwise it would bear very heavily,
indeed, against Phineas Finn.

Then a question arose as to the road which Mr. Bonteen usually took
from the club. All the members who were there present had walked home
with him at various times,--and by various routes, but never by the
way through the passage. It was supposed that on this occasion he
must have gone by Berkeley Square, because he had certainly not
turned down by the first street to the right, which he would have
taken had he intended to avoid the square. He had been seen by
Barrington Erle and Fitzgibbon to pass that turning. Otherwise they
would have made no remark as to the possibility of a renewed quarrel
between him and Phineas, should Phineas chance to overtake him;--for
Phineas would certainly go by the square unless taken out of his way
by some special purpose. The most direct way of all for Mr. Bonteen
would have been that followed by Lord Fawn; but as he had not turned
down this street, and had not been seen by Lord Fawn, who was known
to walk very slowly, and had often been seen to go by Berkeley
Square,--it was presumed that he had now taken that road. In this
case he would certainly pass the end of the passage towards which
Lord Fawn declared that he had seen the man hurrying whom he now
supposed to have been Phineas Finn. Finn's direct road home would,
as has been already said, have been through the square, cutting off
the corner of the square, towards Bruton Street, and thence across
Bond Street by Conduit Street to Regent Street, and so to Great
Marlborough Street, where he lived. But it had been, no doubt,
possible for him to have been on the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen
the man; for, although in his natural course thither from the club he
would have at once gone down the street to the right,--a course which
both Erle and Fitzgibbon were able to say that he did not take, as
they had seen him go beyond the turning,--nevertheless there had been
ample time for him to have retraced his steps to it in time to have
caught Lord Fawn, and thus to have deceived Fitzgibbon and Erle as to
the route he had taken.

When they had got thus far Lord Cantrip was standing close to the
window of the room at Mr. Gresham's elbow. "Don't allow yourself to
be hurried into believing it," sa